I Didn’t Go to Barcelona

“But you don’t even have the songs written yet. You don’t even know what the album is about. How are you going to record an entire record?”

It felt less like a question and more like being told something about myself I hadn’t agreed to.

“I’ll figure it out,” I said. “Life is just figuring things out over and over again until we die anyway.”

I don’t know if I believed that. I think I just liked how it sounded when I said it out loud.

That’s how Circles started.

In early 2025 I decided I was going to make an eight-song LP and press it to vinyl. I didn’t know what it would be yet, but I knew I wanted to be the kind of person who had done that.

Yesterday, the record came out. A few days before that, the vinyl showed up at my front door. And a few days before that, I lost Indie.

She had been sitting behind me in the kitchen when I wrote “Circles.” I didn’t think that meant anything at the time. Now it feels like it meant everything, but only in a way that doesn’t help me.

After that I was on a plane again, somewhere over the desert, sleeping too much, trying to reorganize my life into something that looked intentional.

The album had a theme. Astrocartography. The idea that certain places are supposed to open you up in certain ways. Barcelona, London, Paris. My Venus line. I liked the idea that there were places where I might become more myself, or more loved, or more something.

“Circles” came first. Then the rest, in pieces. Sometimes the night before a session. Sometimes from fragments I had saved without remembering why. It felt less like writing and more like noticing something that had already been there, waiting for me to admit it.

By mid-summer I was short two and a half songs. I had other songs, but they didn’t belong. Or maybe I didn’t want them to belong. There were things I was resisting to write, which made them louder. I hadn’t launched the Kickstarter campaign but my community backed me all the way once I did, forever grateful for that.

I went back to Canada for a break and finished the songs there. “Decades.” “Barcelona.” The rest of “Overthinking.” I didn’t feel particularly inspired. I just stopped arguing with myself long enough for the songs to happen.

Then the vinyl came, which was its own kind of personality. Multicolour, random, slightly out of my control. Each one different, which felt either meaningful or inconvenient depending on the moment.

I’ve spent two days in London. That’s enough time to get lost once and decide it was intentional.

I've never been to Barcelona. I've spent two days in London. And yet there are full songs about the energy and cadence of those cities. A braver woman would have gotten on a plane. Instead I am here, somewhere over the desert again, sorting out life.

Instead I am here, again, somewhere in the desert, trying to feel like my life is happening in the right order.

But it's not really about being brave. It's about letting life figure itself out, even when you don't want it to. I sometimes think that worrying makes me feel more important than I am. More necessary. It makes me feel valuable in the moment, even when it's doing nothing at all.

A friend told me I should start the next record. Keep the momentum.

I have no idea what to write about and I think that's great.

Which felt wrong at first. Then it felt like a kind of relief.

Like maybe this time, I don’t have to know anything in advance.

Like maybe the next thing will happen whether I understand it or not.

And I will just be there, slightly behind it, trying to catch up.

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